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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26329189">a hero by any other name</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/KestralWatcher/pseuds/KestralWatcher'>KestralWatcher</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>by any other name [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>5+1 Things, Awesome Howling Commandos, Background immortal husbands, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Fix-It, Forgery, Hostage Situation, Language, Multi, Nile is Team Black Panther, Temporary Character Death, World War II, and then gets over herself, in which the author panics in the middle of the fic, safe-house maintenance, slight foxing around the edges, vintage Captain America trading cards, wibbly-wobbly timelines</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 13:00:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,548</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26329189</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/KestralWatcher/pseuds/KestralWatcher</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times an Avenger ruined an immortal’s carefully-laid plans (and one time all the plans got thrown out the window).</p><p>Secondary title: <i>Avengers: Obstruct!</i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>by any other name [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1927990</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>136</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>426</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Captain America & the Howling Commandos</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>All scenes are written from the perspective of a character from <i>The Old Guard</i>. I highly recommend watching that before you start (I highly recommend watching that movie in general). Specific Marvel Cinematic Universe films that would be most helpful to know for this fic include <i>Captain America: The First Avenger</i>, <i>Iron Man</i>, <i>The Avengers</i>, <i>Captain America: Civil War</i>, <i>Doctor Strange</i>, <i>Infinity War</i>, and <i>Endgame</i> (and the story will contain spoilers for the latter two).</p><p>How do the timelines for <i>The Old Guard</i> and the MCU line up? Close your eyes and pretend it all works out like I did. Canon-compliant for <i>The Old Guard</i> (if a bit hand-wavy about the pre-credits scene). Canon-compliant for the MCU.</p><p>No beta, we die like immortals.</p><p>(Relevant tags will be updated with each new chapter.)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They’ve already been fighting this shit-show of a war for over half a decade. They’re tired. They’re beyond tired. Joe hides it behind his jokes. Booker hides it behind alcohol. Nicky hides it behind his endless capacity for love (and a truly terrifying willingness to kill as many Nazis as possible).</p><p>Andy knows she’s doing a piss-poor job of hiding her frustration, but there’s still so much work to do. At least this particular lead has fallen in Booker’s lap, allowing them the opportunity to stop bashing their collective heads against the so-called politics of the resistance operations in France. Though the guys looked to her for the final decision when Booker finished outlining the strange information he’d received, she’d started planning their route through the southeast of France to northern Italy halfway through his spiel.</p><p>Now, at least, Andy is tired from weeks of travel rather than months of watching innocents die. The plan to raid a small outpost rumored to have experimental weapons and wreak as much havoc as possible tastes like bliss. It has been too long since she’s carried her labrys into battle rather than malnourished children away from it.</p><p>They’ll move in at dusk when their two days of scouting had shown that the small cadre of scientists retreats to the main house of the repurposed villa for their evening meal before retiring to their rooms within. Other than a standard guard rotation appropriate to the size and layout of the property, the outpost’s military contingent also settles into a hastily erected barracks at night, leaving the workshops locked and empty overnight.</p><p>Earlier that day, Andy caught a glimpse of an outdoor weapon's test from her perch higher up the mountain. The rifles spit a green blast that ignited its wooden target. Conventional military forces don’t stand a chance against such armaments. They have to destroy the laboratories and eliminate the scientists.</p><p>Behind her, Joe and Nicky finish their farewells. Joe and Booker head out through the forest, like phantoms among the trees, and Nicky takes his position at Andy’s side. “You ready, boss?”</p><p>She glances at her partner for this particular mission and notes how the setting sun lights a fire in his eyes. She can’t help the smile that twists her lips in silent acknowledgment, knowing that matching fires simmer in their chests. The lovers did not often split up for missions since the unfortunate incident in Rotterdam in ’37, but this mission calls for a specific allocation of skills. Let Joe guard Booker while the younger immortal set explosive charges to the outbuildings. She and Nicky would wield a different sort of destruction.</p><p>The summer sun falls behind the nearby mountaintop, blanketing the small valley in darkness. Words no longer necessary after hundreds of years of working in tandem with her little brother, Andy leads Nicky through the trees in the rear approach she’d plotted earlier. They pause long enough to sneak in behind the perimeter patrol, and then Nicky covers her, longsword in hand, as she ghosts up behind the lone soldier at the villa’s kitchen entrance. In his moment of distraction, as he lights his cigarette, she wraps her arm around him in a final embrace and drags the blade of her dagger across his throat.</p><p>Some Italian nobleman will be pleased to note the improvements the military has made to his ancestral home if any of his family are alive after the war to reclaim the estate. Under cover of running water, Andy and Nicky dispatch the pair of soldiers tasked with washing up after the dinner service. They pile the three bodies in the pantry.</p><p>Andy crouches next to the dead men for a moment. “Nicky, this is not typical Nazi insignia.” Rather than swastikas, their collars sport pins that depict a type of octopus or other tentacled sea creature.</p><p>Nicky is already checking the kitchen hall, though he whispers, “A Nazi is a Nazi,” when Andy joins him. It is a refrain she has heard from the man often over the past few years, and she figures she’ll hear it plenty more. They encounter a single soldier collecting used dishes in a formal dining room, who has the pleasure of Nicky’s face as his last sight on earth before a longsword slices through his chest.</p><p>A nearby explosion rattles the dining room windows, and Andy curses. Booker isn’t supposed to trigger the bombs until after she and Nicky clear the villa. With all pretenses of stealth forgotten, Andy sprints toward the front on Nicky’s heels. They emerge from a parlor into the main foyer, and she slams into Nicky’s outstretched arm as the front door rattles once from a direct impact.</p><p>It slams open on the second hit, and an imposing figure strides inside as he sweeps the foyer with his service pistol before leveling it on Andy and Nicky. In his off-hand, he carries a circular shield decorated with a white star.</p><p>For a beat, Andy locks eyes with the man. She sizes him up, drawing on millennia of combat experience. Gear designed for combat rather than stealth. He looks like an Aryan poster child, down to the “A” logo on his headgear.</p><p>He appears to evaluate her and Nicky as quickly, and calls out, “Dugan, we’ve got company!” The accent on the English words is distinct, and then the “A” designation and appallingly patriotic color scheme of his gear make sense. The Americans are many things, but subtle is not one of them.</p><p>Shouting in German has erupted upstairs as the commotion rouses the scientists from their rooms, and then another explosion rocks the villa. This one is closer and strong enough to blow out the building’s front windows. The American raises his shield for cover, manipulating it with an ease Andy last saw from the Mughal Army.</p><p>This Dugan never responds, but Joe’s voice carries into the villa as he shouts the team’s <em>drop everything and bug out</em> code phrase (basically, “drop everything and bug out” in old Genoese). A screaming match in French swallows Joe’s words—Booker and an unknown man trading insults on bomb-making and parentage.</p><p>Andy and the American heave matching sighs, prompting a snort of laughter from the man. He lowers his service pistol half a foot. “They with you?” he asks.</p><p>Nicky sheathes his longsword and snags Andy’s elbow. “Yes,” he replies in English. “We must go.” The French has escalated to barbs on sexual proclivities.</p><p>A shot rings out in the foyer, as one of the German scientists proves to have more balls than typical. The American twists with the skill of a principal dancer, and the bullet ricochets off his shield to bury in the foyer’s crown molding. His movement leaves the front door clear, and Nicky wastes no time in dragging Andy out of the villa before the American can stop them.</p><p>Three soldiers in mismatched uniforms, presumably cohorts of the American since one of them has dark skin, sprint past them into the building. Andy braces for bullets to strike her body once they’re out in the open, the usual experience when a mission goes to hell, but some combination of Joe and Booker and this American force have cleared the outpost’s German military presence. Joe joins their side out of the smoky darkness, hauling Booker by the back of his wool coat.</p><p>Booker manages a final, “<em>Et va te faire foutre aussi</em>,” over his shoulder before the team runs for the cover of the forest. They put at least a mile between them and the outpost before Andy allows them to stumble to a halt. They pass around canteens while they catch their collective breathes.</p><p>“Who the hell were they?” Andy asks once Joe and Nicky have finished their traditional inspection for injuries, and Booker has recovered enough to trade his canteen for his flask. “And why did they compromise our mission?”</p><p>Joe spreads his arms in confused frustration. “We ran into the Frenchman and two others coming from the opposite direction just as Book finished setting the charge on the first laboratory building. First one around the corner looked <em>nihonjin</em>. About gave me a heart attack.”</p><p>“We spoke to an American inside, and passed a Black man on the way out,” Andy says.</p><p>Nicky leans into Joe’s side as he taps the pommel of his longsword in thought. “An international unit supported by the Allies, perhaps,” he says.</p><p>Booker rolls his eyes and took another swig from his flask. “Next time, they should just call us and save everyone the trouble.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I swore I wouldn’t write any historical The Old Guard fic and then promptly wrote a scene set during World War 2.</p><p>1. I have no idea what happened in Rotterdam in 1937.<br/>2. The Mughal Army used round shields in the eighteenth century.<br/>3. Principal dancer: Lead ballet dancer in a production.<br/>4. I’m not translating that French for you.<br/>5. <i>Nihonjin</i>: I figure the guys have been around long enough both to specifically recognize someone of Japanese heritage and refer to them using the term the Japanese use for themselves.</p><p>Next up: We’re hitting contemporary time as the team encounters Iron Man.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Iron Man</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Joe curses in half a dozen languages before he flings himself from behind a partially-destroyed wall and into the open. Too many combatants for finesse—he lays down suppressing fire until he reaches the next point of possible cover. Makes it without injury (this time) and sucks in dusty, cold air. Leans around the corner, picks off a single hostile with a short burst. That brings his count to a handful. A handful among the potentially dozens who had sprung into action at least 48 hours before his contact had promised the goods would be shipped.</p><p>Afghanistan has been a shit-show for decades, and Gulmira is the shittiest possible place to be right now. At least the others, with their paler complexions, had been able to rotate in the latter decades of the twentieth century when Eastern Europe had been the source of never-ending tragedy. But the twenty-first century has seen a shift back to the Middle East, which means Joe hits the ground first every damned time, never mind that Nicky’s Dari and Pashto are both better than his.</p><p>Some organization has been transporting Stark tech around the region in an elaborate shell game of death. Until the team figures out the source of the weapons caches, they’ve been doing their best to remove them from play. The plan for the Gulmira cache had been simple enough—Joe would embed himself in the town until the transport left the vicinity of so much potential collateral damage, then the others would swoop in and help him liberate the materiel from the convoy.</p><p>Two boys stumble on Joe’s alcove. He directs them to safety, the direction he’d come from, before they can reveal his position. Doesn’t bother tracking their progress when anything resembling actual safety in this half-bombed town is more of a wish than a promise.</p><p>The initial widespread shots throughout the town that had roused Joe into action seem to have merged into a handful of blocks. He crouch-runs down the street, pausing only to rifle the body he’d felled for additional ammo. No luck.</p><p>And no help for it. He has to keep moving, has to get to the weapons cache before it can be transported, and they lose it in the desert.</p><p>He reaches the courtyard where most of the shooting and shouting seems to be concentrated. Risks a quick look around a corner and ducks back. Centuries of experience identify each major factor at play: the cases half-loaded into a truck, the civilians unlucky enough to be in the area rounded up in a terrified bunch.</p><p>Joe spares a moment to long for the weight of his blade at his back, but even with it, he has no chance against so many hostiles and among so many hostages. The tone of the shouting changes and he risks another look. Fuck. Now they’re separating the men from the women and children, lining the former up against a wall while shoving the latter toward a second truck. Not just a transport operation, then; they were going to wipe what was left of this town off the map.</p><p>He plots a route around the courtyard, wondering whether it will be possible to make it to the front of the trucks. He’s not sure he can bear to watch a series of pointless executions, another in a long line of deaths stringing back nearly a century across the continent. The meager breakfast he’d managed threatens to come up, a split-second of psychosomatic heartsickness and rage at this stupid world, until a jet engine echoes across the sky.</p><p>What now? The Americans come to wipe this town off the map even more literally?</p><p>The roar closes in on the courtyard. Not a jet. Joe feels his eyes widen as a red and gold suit of armor drops into the empty space. Joe grips his weapon close. The whole team had heard the story of Tony Stark’s escape from captivity using some type of robot. Was this another in a string of even more terrifying weapons that the West insisted on strewing about Afghanistan?</p><p>From his position lurking to the side, Joe has a perfect view of the unfolding drama. Bullets bounce off the metallic suit, and then it springs into action. It takes out multiple hostiles by flinging them away via blasts of power from its palms but pauses when it turns to confront the group holding the women and children hostage. It lowers its arms as if about to surrender—then, targeted shots from the armor’s shoulder drop each hostile, leaving the civilians unscathed.</p><p>For a heartbeat, Joe vacillates between outrage over how he and his team are supposed to fight such a weapon and despair over how the hell he’s supposed to get a hold of one for Andy to play with.</p><p>The suit of armor strolls over to a far wall and punches through it. When it retracts its arm, it hurls a man—Joe recognizes one of the crew’s higher-ups—amidst the clustered civilians. He hears the armor say, “He’s all yours,” in American-accented English before the boots light up, and it rockets into the sky.</p><p>Joe doesn’t need to see what the villagers do to one of the men who’d been about to slaughter or kidnap them. He stares beyond them to the stacked crates of weaponry, only about half of which had been loaded onto a truck.</p><p>He has to get back to the tiny room he’d claimed in a half-toppled building to dig out his radio and contact the team about what just happened. He has to stay with the crates of weaponry, so they’re not disturbed by the villagers. But he is only one man, and he is very tired, and damn it, now suits of armor are flying around and blasting energy from their palms. And it or more of them could return any moment.</p><p>What a shit-show.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>1. This is the first time I’ve incorporated a moment from the screen onto the page from an external POV. I did expand on what might be going down in Gulmira because I needed a reason for the gang to be around. Upon re-watching this scene, it also occurred to me how utterly useless Tony’s actions are for the people he supposedly helped in the long-term, showing just how early he is on his path to figuring out how to be a “productive” hero.</p><p>2. Andy definitely wants her own fancy set of armor to blast people with until she finds out it was that asshole Tony Stark inside of it and never speaks of it again. Except to bitch about that asshole Iron Man whenever he’s in the news.</p><p>Next up: Booker attempts to sell some forged trading cards.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. [redacted]</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This was supposed to be half as along. Apparently, I really like writing Booker.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>September 11, 2011, is officially a decade past. However, Joe still refuses to travel to the United States unless absolutely necessary due to an incident in November 2001, which means Nicky has no desire to travel to the United States either. So, when Andy splits to their (her) Montana ranch to indulge a need for a few months of quiet horse time, Booker volunteers to do a quick check of the rest of their U.S. safe houses, and by volunteers he means he leaves Joe and Nicky at their Italian home and just goes and does it.</p><p>The Long Island house is okay, as are the ones near Boston and Savannah. He spends a few days in each to air them out, update a few appliances, and replace some nonperishables that have, alas, still managed to perish. But the whiskey is always still good, and despite the tragic lack of proper football on American television, Booker manages to catch up on his sleep for the first time this century.</p><p>The house outside New Orleans, though…what a shit-show. Booker is glad he swung through to check on it shortly after Hurricane Katrina, because even though the house itself never flooded, somehow black mold has still bloomed in all the rooms on the first floor. At least the second floor and attic are untouched, so he doesn’t have to entirely decamp to a nearby motel while he clears all the weaponry that can be salvaged and arranges for contractors. Europe has spoiled him because the nearest IKEA is in Houston, and therefor Booker has to deal with overly helpful sales associates at a chain hardware store instead.</p><p>Since he’s going to be here a while, Booker tackles clearing out the crap in the attic the team has been dumping between missions for the past 150 years they’ve owned this property. He trashes trunks worth of disintegrating clothing (leaving a few hardy pieces on the doorstep of a local community theater) and sorts the rest of the accumulated antiques into “keep” and “auction online to the highest bidder.”</p><p>He covers the entire cost of the house reno with a single James Audubon painting. He’s even one-hundred percent certain that it’s an original since he remembers Joe coming home with it. Two other boxes of various <em>objet d’art</em> are more challenging to parse because a not insignificant portion of it is shit Booker himself replicated. But none of it is nearly as identifiable as a certain duck painting, so in between creating solid American identities for the overseas families of the two contractors doing everything from laying flooring to installing a modern kitchen, Booker lists it all through multiple third-party auction sites and figures any money is better than no money.</p><p>It turns out there’s a decent demand for World War Two-era memorabilia featuring Captain America and that crew of assholes he dragged around Europe with him. Something about nostalgia for the world’s first superhero now that another has appeared (and Booker is sure to mutter “Fucking Iron Man” on Andy’s behalf every time that name comes up). Joe and Nicky had thought it hilarious to collect the Howling Commandos trading cards for Booker in the 1950s and 60s, and Booker had promptly turned around and forged replicas, which funded bail bonds for the kids who kept sitting at lunch counters and getting arrested for it, and later, for members of the more organized Freedom Rider groups.</p><p>The originals and forgeries are mixed at the bottom of a box of dried paints. Booker doesn’t bother to sort them before he sets up the auctions. At least half are snatched up by someone with the username Cheese_Rngr, paying the immediate buy-out price. Booker thinks nothing of it because everyone’s got their thing.</p><p>Thirty-two days later, the house is finally complete, Hector and Ricky are on their way to San Salvador to collect their wives and children, and Booker is no cook, but he figures he might as well put the kitchen to good use for one proper meal since it might be decades before Nicky uses the fancy double-oven.</p><p>The doorbell rings.</p><p>Booker sets down the bottle of wine he is definitely not drinking straight from, checks the pistol tucked into his jeans at his back, and hopes that it’s the Girl Scout again (he had been inebriated when he told the kid to come back with every box of Thin Mints she could get her hands on, and the mother had been horrified, but the gleam in the kid’s eye promised glorious, glorious mint chocolate). The grown man at the door is not a Girl Scout. Booker eyes his nondescript black suit through the peephole and notes that he’s carrying in a shoulder holster. What the hell—he’s escaping the humidity tomorrow anyway, abandoning his current alias when he leaves New Orleans and adopting a new persona the moment he walks out of the airport in San Francisco. He can talk to a suit if the alternative is more suits coming back later (there are always more suits in this stupid country).</p><p>Booker opens the door. “Can I help you?” he asks, suppressing most of his accent into Standard American English. He gets the immediate sense that the suit, a generic white man with a bureaucrat’s haircut, is clocking him the same way Booker is evaluating him. Booker does not smile in greeting. He has dinner to eat and wine to drink and a Sounders game to watch.</p><p>But the suit smiles in return, as equally bland as his haircut, and asks, “Is Mr. Samuel Page or Mr. Bastien Sortilège available? My name is Phil Coulson, and I’d like to discuss Mr. Sortilège’s work.”</p><p>And Booker freezes for a heartbeat because he’s three glasses of wine in and Page is his current alias but Sortilège is the name his auction accounts are under. Then, the oven timer dings and Andy will never hear about this because she will eviscerate him. “You can call me Booker. Would you like to join me for dinner?”</p><p>(Worst-case scenario, he dumps a dead IRS agent in the bayou and has to recreate a few online personas and reroute some accounts through different shell companies. Worst-worst-case scenario, he dumps a dead FBI/CIA/NSA/other alphabet soup agent in the bayou and can never return to the United States again, and maybe Joe is onto something with that.)</p><p>Booker does the song and dance of offering drinks (Coulson passes on wine but accepts water) and dishing out the roasted salmon and vegetables. As they settle at the kitchen table, Coulson says, “Don’t mind the suit. I’m in town for separate business and didn’t have time to change before I came by. I’m not here in any official capacity.”</p><p>“Then how can I help you?” Booker sets down the glass he’d poured the rest of the wine into without taking a sip. His fingers curl around his dinner knife, and once again, he has the sense that Coulson is entirely aware of this action.</p><p>Coulson reaches into his jacket, but it’s the opposite side of where his weapon is holstered, so he avoids getting a dull knife to the eye. He withdraws a handful of trading cards, each one protected in a plastic sleeve, like the ones Booker had purchased from the kid at the local comic shop who kept wanting to talk to him about some show about zombies. He places half a dozen cards, three sets of duplicates, on the table between place settings—vintage Captain America trading cards.</p><p>No wonder the man knows his auction alias. Apparently, he’s invited “Cheese_Rngr” in for dinner. Booker maintains his silence.</p><p>Coulson points to one column of cards and says, “I already owned these.” Points to the next row. “I just purchased these online. It’s a remarkable work of forgery. Not many realize that it’s practically a work of art in itself.”</p><p>“You want your money back, then?” Booker asks.</p><p>“Not at all,” Coulson says as if the idea surprises him. “I’m here to find out whether your source can make more.”</p><p>Booker blinks. Tries not to glance at the wine as if it is the source of this madness. “Blackmail, then. You want more fakes to sell and profit from.”</p><p>It’s Coulson’s turn to blink in surprise. “That would be illegal,” he says. He withdraws a paper from the same pocket that held the cards and offers it to Booker. “This is a list of the full set of cards. Three of the original set were limited print runs, and as far as my research shows, no longer exist. The detail on these forgeries is so excellent that I wanted to know if your source might be willing to take a commission to recreate the lost cards.”</p><p>The man’s request is…unexpected. Booker rubs the side of his thumb against his forehead. “I can certainly propose the idea to him.”</p><p>Coulson beams at him. “That would be much appreciated. My contact information is on the paper, and the three missing cards are marked. I’d love to get an estimate when he has the time.”</p><p>As if he has no idea that the man sitting across from him is the artist. Booker appreciates the subtlety. And honestly, the idea intrigues him. He’ll have to head back to France and reopen the Marseilles house, where he keeps a full studio. Do his own research into the missing cards and brush up on some old techniques. “I suppose you can expect to hear from him in…perhaps a month?”</p><p>“Excellent,” Coulson says. “There’s no rush on this, obviously.” He takes a bit of salmon. “This is delicious, by the way.”</p><p>“<em>Merci</em>,” Booker says, his mind already swirling with plans. He’ll have to find out from Andy how much longer this particular hiatus will last. Check whether Joe might be willing to consult on pigments.</p><p>The safehouse in San Francisco will just have to wait.</p>
<hr/><p>Eighteen months later, before Nick Fury tosses a handful of bloodied trading cards across a table before Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, he makes sure to select cards from the deck labeled “Sortilège” in Coulson’s locker.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>1. My grandfather started refusing to travel after an incident in an airport shortly after 9/11 that he refused to talk about. Racism sucks.</p><p>2. Apparently, “shit-show” is the official recurring theme of this series of connected scenes.</p><p>3. The Sounders are the Seattle soccer team, and the only American soccer team I know off-hand, and I just spent 30 minutes researching New Orleans artists, so I’m not googling soccer.</p><p>4. Does Coulson abuse SHIELD resources to investigate when he suspects that some of the vintage trading cards he just purchased online might be forgeries?</p><p>Of course not.</p><p>He asks JARVIS.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Team Irritated</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The pros vastly outweigh the cons for Nile’s role in this particular job. They’re down a person, because Andy is recovering from a sprained ankle and dislocated shoulder (because she forgot she can’t actually jump out of a second-story window like an action star), which means Joe is running point on the mission and Nicky is his overwatch/sniper/protective boyfriend. All Nile has to do is enjoy a couple of leisurely days in Berlin and wait at the hanger for the private plane to roll in. Pick up the package and deliver it to Andy’s contact. Meet the team back in Italy the next day.</p><p>She doesn’t even have to be armed to the teeth for once, so she’s rocking a cute sundress with only a small pistol tucked into her jean jacket. The weather is gorgeous, and she’s claimed a seat on a bench outside the destination hanger, where she will happily play on her phone until the plane arrives. Overall, not a bad gig, especially since she’ll get to visit that excellent dance club again tonight.</p><p>She looks up from her phone when the office manager of the small transport company steps out of his office and locks the door behind him. He shoots rapid-fire German at Nile, gesturing behind him.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” she says. “You’re talking too fast.”</p><p>She only catches about a third of the words that time, but she recognizes “terrorists” and “danger” and “go.” He makes to grab her elbow, but she shakes him off.</p><p>“<em>Is the plane I’m waiting for still coming in?</em>” Nile asks. At least she hopes she does.</p><p>The man huffs at her and storms off. She definitely recognizes “idiot American” that time.</p><p>Nile calls Joe first. “Hey, did the plane take off?”</p><p>“What are you—oof. Nile? Yeah, the plane took off. Should be landing soon, right?”</p><p>Joe is breathing heavy, and Nile picks up another grunt in the background. Oh. <em>Oh</em>. “Never mind. Sorry to bother you, kids.” Hangs up. Calls Andy.</p><p>“Nile.”</p><p>“Any word on your end about what’s going on here?”</p><p>“What are you talking about?”</p><p>“The office manager on this end of the shipping company just abandoned his office while saying something about terrorists.” Nile isn’t worried yet, but she was a U.S. Marine for long enough that such a phrase immediately brings her to high alert, no matter the context.</p><p>“Hold on.” Slow typing on Andy’s end of the line. Then, cursing. “The plane’s been diverted to Frankfurt, and Berlin-Tegel is under evacuation.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Doesn’t say.”</p><p>Nile squints as a lone figure jogs out into the open, farther down the runway from the hanger where she’s waiting, then glances up at a loud <em>whoosh</em>. “Andy, you are never going to believe this. Captain America and Iron Man are here.” Another flying suit accompanies Iron Man, but Nile can never remember what name the Air Force colonel is flying under from year to year.</p><p>“<em>Fucking</em> Iron Man—”</p><p>Nile hangs up and shoves the phone back in her jacket. She is not missing this. Andy can coordinate with the guys about Frankfurt once they’ve finished their post-mission sex.</p><p>Soon, a fourth suit Nile doesn’t recognize leaps into the scene, and then freaking Black Widow herself strolls out. She can’t pick up any of the tense conversation from this distance, but it doesn’t look good. They must be discussing the best way to handle the terrorists.</p><p>Except then <em>another</em> unfamiliar suit swings in and steals Cap’s shield. It’s not a discussion. It’s an argument.</p><p>And all hell breaks loose.</p>
<hr/><p>A few hours later, Nile receives a text from Joe’s phone. <em>Everything ok?</em> She swipes the text away, back to the GPS, and guns the car’s engine. She’s still got four hours to go on her drive to Frankfurt. Someone owes her an evening of dancing.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>1. I really wanted Nile’s section to involve Shuri, but I knew that watching <i>Black Panther</i> again for inspiration right now would only make me cry. Rest in power, Chadwick Boseman.</p><p>2. Technically <i>Captain America: Civil War</i> actually happens before Nile becomes immortal and joins the team. This is why I told you not to pay attention to timelines. </p><p>Next up: Time travel is hard.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Strange Encounters</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sorry for the delay on this chapter. I'm on vacation this week, plus I realized too late that I'd decided on a chapter in which the two voices in each of these fandoms that I find most difficult to write have a conversation with each other. Cue 48 hours of panic before I buckled down and wrote it.</p><p>The final outline of this story ended up very different than how I originally envisioned it. Nile's chapter was supposed to involve Black Panther, but then I couldn't bear to write T'Challa after recent tragic events. Nicky's chapter was supposed to involve interactions with Hawkeye and the Winter Soldier as the three best snipers in the world. And one chapter in this fic was supposed to be the five years after the snap, but then I decided that particular story involved a story of it's own. (Good news! There's gonna be a sequel.)</p><p>I already have the final chapter set in my head, so the wait should not be as long. Thank you to everyone who has let me know that they're enjoying this strange journey so far.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There are many ways in which Nile has slipped into their team as seamlessly as if she has been with them already for two hundred years, for a thousand years, for four thousand years. How her newfound immortality brings with it the vivid memories of vulnerability in the way she covers Andy on jobs without a hint of overbearing protectiveness. How the modern military training of her mortal life better prepared her for small-group operations on an instinctual level. How she might joke about wanting to be as sexy as him and Joe with their swords but knows that specific training might take years, so in the meantime, has taken to knife-fighting like a fish to water.</p><p>How she is willing—no, <em>happy</em>—to spend hours at the nearest art museum with Joe, discussing styles and techniques and colors and balance. A space in Joe’s life that Nicky once filled, but that Nile has inhabited as if coming home.</p><p>Does Nicky mind that he has been left behind to enjoy tea and a book on the hotel veranda? A quiet morning to relax and recharge before they escape the city that evening, escorting political activists to refuge beyond the reach of the Chinese government?</p><p>Absolutely not. Especially when the book is excellent, and tiny cakes accompany the tea, and the Hong Kong sun is warm. Later in the afternoon, he will meet Joe and Nile to introduce her to their favorite restaurant in the city, where they will be three foreign faces, but the wait staff will delight in Joe’s Cantonese accent. Here, however, Nicky is another white man among the tourists still happy to visit the island city despite the political unrest and frequent protests.</p><p>Nicky notes another white man in a sophisticated suit who walks across the veranda the same way he notes all movement around him, even while relaxing in a supposedly safe location. He does not look up from his book until the man stops near his table and clears his throat. Centuries of experience prevents any change to his “slightly bored/slightly irritated at this unexpected interruption” expression when the man says his name.</p><p>Not his current alias.</p><p>He says, “Nicolò di Genova,” as if he fully expects the name to be correct. And that Nicky might answer to it.</p><p>He is in for disappointment then, because Nicky says, “Pardon?” and then takes another sip of his tea.</p><p>The man’s artfully-groomed facial hair twists as he purses his lips in mild frustration. “I am speaking to Nicolò di Genova, am I not?”</p><p>He speaks with an American accent, so Nicky shapes his next words as if German is his native tongue. “I’m afraid you have the wrong person.” The fingers around the handle of his teacup remain steady. Inside, Nicky’s previous inner calm roils.</p><p>Narrowing his eyes, the man pulls out the seat across from Nicky and slips into it. He keeps his hands in sight at all times as he leans forward. “No, I’m quite certain I have the correct one.”</p><p>This time, he does not wait for a response from Nicky before he lifts his right hand. Nicky tenses as the man twists his fingers in an odd gesture.</p><p>Around them on the veranda, all movement ceases. As if the people who surround them are on a movie screen, and the remote has hit the pause button. As if by magic.</p><p>Nicky twitches his foot for the reassurance that he has not also frozen. Then he weighs how quickly he might draw the pistol at his back against what other power this man might carry at his fingertips. Considers whether such a weapon might have any effect versus this man’s ability. Weighs whether he has completely lost his mind.</p><p>“Now that I have your complete attention,” the man says, “can you please verify that I am speaking with Nicolò di Genova?”</p><p>With a sigh, Nicky slips the receipt he’s been using as a bookmark into his novel and lays it aside. He drops the German accent and replies, “Yes, I suppose you are.”</p><p>“Third times the charm,” the man says. He extends his right hand. “I’m Dr. Stephen Strange. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance finally. I’ve heard much about you.”</p><p>That is decidedly not good news. But for lack of any better option at the moment, Nicky reaches over the table and shakes his hand.</p><p>“I’ve had alerts set to notify me if you, Yusuf al-Kaysani, or Sebastian Le Livre visited any of my cities,” Strange says. “I am a bit surprised that I found you in Hong Kong rather than in London or New York.”</p><p>As much as Nicky has no desire to engage with this man any more than necessary, he owes it to his family to gather as much information about this “Dr. Strange” as possible so that Copley can clear up whatever tracks the man used to discover their earliest identities. “It will probably be years before we return to either of those places,” Nicky says. “But we found good we could do here. Might I ask—?”</p><p>“I assure you that I mean you and your compatriots no harm,” Dr. Strange says. “In fact, I’m here to ask for your help.”</p><p>Nicky sighs. His actual question had regarded how Dr. Strange seemed to create this bubble out of time between the two of them, to verify that those around them would suffer no ill effects. Still, it also makes sense that such a powerful man would jump straight to the blackmail bit of this peculiar exchange. “And what sort of ‘help’ do you need?” There’s no reason to disguise the sarcasm, so Nicky doesn’t bother. In the back of his mind, Nicky calculates whether they will still be able to aid the activists, depending on what this man requests of them. He also didn’t miss how Strange had referred to Booker rather than Nile, and made no mention of Andy at all, and how his team might exploit this out-of-date knowledge.</p><p>“There’s a war coming.”</p><p>Nicky’s thought-process freezes, and he focuses his not-inconsiderable attention on Dr. Strange. Allows himself the momentary sense of satisfaction when the man leans back an inch in his seat without seeming to realize it. “A war,” Nicky repeats.</p><p>“Not for a few years,” Strange says. “But all signs point to it, and when the final battle comes, Earth will need every available warrior on its side.”</p><p>Does Nicky dare question the sanity of someone with seemingly magical abilities? Best not to risk it. “And you think my team will tip the balance?”</p><p>Strange spreads his hands, and Nicky suppresses a flinch. “I have calculated millions of possible outcomes,” he says. “And right now, the best I can do is make every effort to stack the odds in our favor.”</p><p>“By gathering an army,” Nicky says. “Why not instead work to reduce the odds of the battle happening at all? If you know it’s coming, why aren’t you working to calm the other side rather than accepting that combat is inevitable?” He does understand, after centuries of experience, that by the time armed conflict starts, it is often somewhat inevitable. But it doesn’t hurt to ask why a man with such supposed power might take the longer view.</p><p>“Because the battle will happen here on Earth,” Strange says, “but it won’t be against an enemy of our Earth.”</p><p>Nicky heaves a sigh. He and the team had watched in horror, from across the planet and much too far away to assist in time, as aliens trashed New York City. He has heard about Thor. Has listened to enough of Andy’s opinions on the man to understand that Andy knows more than she’s letting on. “More aliens, then,” Nicky says. “Isn’t that what the Avengers are for? Why search out us? We are not…superheroes.”</p><p>(Nile sometimes compares them to superheroes. Andy scoffs, but Joe always preens at the compliment in which she intends it.)</p><p>“Because this will be more than even the Avengers can handle on their own,” Strange says, and for the first time, he allows Nicky to see the fear and worry that this supposed future evokes in him. “You are certainly not the only people I intend to recruit against this potential need.”</p><p>“And when will this need occur?” Nicky asks. “Do you know when or where my team will need to be? Do you know what type of enemy we will fight, or their weaknesses?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Strange says as if the words pain him to speak. “Millions of possible futures currently exist. And so few where Earth survives. All I can do right now is try to increase that number.”</p><p>“Then are we to remain at your beck and call and walk in blind?”</p><p>“No,” Strange says. “You won’t remember this conversation even happened. But one day, one of my associates will knock on your door, and I need to know whether you will gear up and follow them to protect the planet against a foe more dangerous than you can possibly imagine.”</p><p>What sort of luck had brought Strange to Nicky rather than to Andy, or Joe, or even Nile? Except perhaps Strange had already examined those possible futures as well and knew that Nicky would always be the first to demand that they do what they can to do good in the world. Including, apparently, defend it from interstellar danger. He knows Joe would be more suspicious but will follow where Nicky leads. Knows that Nile might one day be the leader of their team in whatever shape it holds, but that she will always respect and support the battles Nicky and Joe want to fight.</p><p>Knows that as much as Andy is willing to recuse herself from specific missions now, thanks to her newfound mortality, that she would not hesitate to throw herself in the path of anyone or anything that threatens the world she views as hers.</p><p>Knows that Booker—</p><p>“Yes,” Nicky says. “Yes, we would be willing to help if needed.”</p><p>A smile lights up Strange’s face, wiping away the previous tension. “Excellent. I’m pleased to hear that, Mr. di Genova.”</p>
<hr/><p>Nicky blinks at the table in front of him. Why had he put his book down in the middle of such an exciting chapter? Ah, because his tea is empty. Even as he refills his cup from the small pot, he considers returning to the hotel room and napping until Joe and Nile return. He will need his energy and focus tonight.</p><p>A tourist family with two small children settle at a nearby table. The son sports a “Hawkeye” t-shirt, and Nicky chuckles to himself. Nile had wondered a few weeks ago how Nicky might give the now-famous former SHIELD agent a contest when she learned that Nicky’s ability as a sniper had originated from his use of a bow.</p><p>The idea that one day they might find out somehow does not seem implausible, for once.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>1. I don’t believe that Strange waited to investigate the possible outcomes of the Thanos situation until he was already in the middle of the fight on Titan. He and his fellow sorcerers were way too prepared to show up with combatants from across the planet to fight an alien army in New York.</p><p>2. Does Andy remember a time when the line between Earth and the other worlds of Yggdrassil was much thinner? Did she ever meet Thor? Did Quynh and Loki ever hate-fuck?</p><p>Yes, probably, and someone please write that fanfic for me.</p><p>3. Is this all a weird setup for the final chapter in this fic? </p><p>Absolutely.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Assemble</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>My apologies, once again, for the delay. I'm never posting another fic a chapter at a time ever again.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The cut is an accident. A slip of the hand, always possible even after millennia wielding a blade. Andy raises her bloody index finger and waits for the pain to hit. She needs a moment to brace herself before she turns to Nile, because the younger woman will examine Andy’s finger and declare the appropriate level of first aid, and despite Nile’s business-like attitude, Andy will sense the undercurrent of fear and sadness that permeates each member of her family at even the slightest hint that Andy might suffer the most minor of injuries.</p><p>As Andy places aside the knife and turns, a shiver runs through her chest. Then, the lighting in the kitchen significantly alters, canting from a semi-dreary early afternoon to the darkness of late evening. Finger forgotten, she catches Nile’s shocked expression.</p><p>“What the hell was that?” Nile asks. “There supposed to be an eclipse today?”</p><p>“Eclipses are slow. This is something different,” Andy says. “Nicky!” Her holler echoes through the Italian house, where it should reach him in the living room.</p><p>“Andy, look. Your fruit is gone.” Nile opens the microwave. “And no popcorn.”</p><p>Nicky flicks on the overhead light as he enters the kitchen, and Andy blinks in the sudden brightness. “What is happening?” he asks. Without waiting for an answer, he pulls his phone from his pocket. “I have no service.”</p><p>Nile grabs her own phone from her back pocket and shakes her head as she checks it. “Me, either.”</p><p>All three of them startle when the front door slams open, and then Joe shouts from the front hall. “<em>Nicol</em><em>ò!</em>”</p><p>Nicky jerks out of the kitchen as if pulled by an invisible string. Andy follows on his heels at the mixed emotions in Joe’s shout—hope and fear and pain and love. She finds the couple locked in an embrace in the foyer, a much more dramatic reunion than necessary for the quick trip to town Joe had made.</p><p>Except Joe had left after lunch with a full beard and a mop of curly hair in desperate need of a cut. Nicky usually cuts his hair, so there is no reason for Joe to have had it done in town—he hasn’t been gone long enough besides—but nothing explains the change in his clothing from a t-shirt and ratty jeans to black tactical gear. Or the way he sags in Nicky’s arms, endearments and affirmations and kisses pressed to Nicky’s face and neck, again as if he has not seen his husband for years instead of half an hour.</p><p>Nile hesitates at Andy’s shoulder, taking in the strange reunion, but Andy focuses once again on the altered light out the open front door. “Joe, what is going on?”</p><p>He jerks in Nicky’s arms, and when he lifts his head, his eyes are wild. “Andy. Nile.” He pulls away from Nicky and staggers the few feet to the women, then tugs them both into a single hug. His cheek, tucked against Andy’s, is wet from tears. She puts her arm around him automatically, and now Andy feels the changes in Joe from when they sparred that morning. He’s leaner, pared down to the bare essentials as if he has been doing too much physical activity with inadequate food.</p><p>Someone knocks on the frame of the open front door, and Joe’s reaction is instantaneous. He draws a weapon from the small of his back and aims it at the young woman standing right outside. It’s even more of a hair-trigger than they were on right after the Merrick situation, and Nile flinches back even while Andy’s hands itch for a weapon of their own.</p><p>(And she’s resisting the urge to look at her finger because what she doesn’t feel is almost more terrifying than what she should feel and Andy doesn’t have the bandwidth for that when she doesn’t know why the sky has changed and something very odd is going on with Yusuf and she recognizes the woman’s robes, which never fail to stoke a rage that should be long-buried.)</p><p>The woman jerks her hands up at Joe’s threatening stance, but Andy snags his arm. “Don’t,” she says. “It won’t work anyway.” Before Joe can react, she steps in front of him. “What do you want?” She doesn’t bother to conceal the vitriol in her voice—the Ancient One’s minions don’t deserve her family’s violence, but she won’t spare them her scorn.</p><p>Hand still curled in front of her, the woman says, “I’m here with a message for Nicolò di Genova. The Sorcerer Supreme sends his regards. The aid he asked of you at your previous meeting is now necessary.”</p><p>Simultaneously, Andy asks, “He?” and Nicky asks, “How many?” and Joe asks, “Everyone is back, then?”</p><p>And Nile shoves herself forward. “Is someone going to explain what the hell is going on?”</p><p>For some reason, they all look at Joe (including the woman, but probably because he still grips his pistol). Joe rubs a hand over his stubble and says, “Clint told me to get back here in case it worked. I’m guessing it brought <em>him</em> back, too?”</p><p>“And his armies,” the woman says. “We don’t have much time.”</p><p>“Right,” Joe says.</p><p>He and Nicky exchange one of their unreadable glances, and Andy’s not sure why Joe’s expression wants to make her cry. Whatever happened must have been significant, must have been earth-shattering. Nile practically vibrates next to her.</p><p>“Right,” Joe says again. Turns to the woman. “Days or hours?”</p><p>“Minutes,” she says. “I’ll prepare the portal.”</p><p>The woman ducks out of view, and Andy wants to chase her, to ask why and how the Sorcerer Supreme is no longer <em>her</em>, but Joe says, “I prepped everyone’s gear in the living room.” His voice reaches all of them, but he has eyes only for Nicky. “You agreed to Strange’s ask, but I’m the one with a debt to pay.”</p><p>Nicky grips Joe’s shoulder. “Then, we will pay it together.”</p><hr/><p>Nicky with a mission means Joe and Nile have a mission, and Andy does not resist being swept up in their wake. The living room, which should have Nile’s laptop hooked to the TV with a movie queued up, is dusty from disuse except for the promised bundles of gear. They exchange lounge clothing for their tac gear, strap on weapons both modern and ancient.</p><p>(Joe removes an empty katana sheath from his back and replaces it with his familiar scimitar, taking it from the same pack as Nicky’s longsword. That simple act, more than the changes to Joe’s hair, more than the alterations to his physique, tells Andy that she has missed something unimaginable. She still does not check her finger.)</p><p>Outside, the woman opens a golden portal, and Nile says, “Oh, <em>hell</em> no—” and Andy and Joe drag her through with them. They emerge on the edge of a cliff, facing a swath of destruction and a sea of enemies not of this Earth.</p><p>Below, a small figure in obnoxiously patriotic colors cries, “Assemble!”</p><p>Andy grips her labrys in hands that don’t ache, shifts her weight forward on knees that don’t creak, and joins the charge.</p><hr/><p>Time flies when you’re having fun, and Andy has not had so much fun in—</p><p>There is something to be said about a literal battle of good versus evil, in the uncompromising joy of knowing that the death she wields is for the benefit of her family, her world. She ran out of bullets within the first minutes of the fight, but this combat is not the modern guerilla warfare she has adapted to in the past century. Instead, it is a churning mass of humanity and other, clashing on a single field of battle.</p><p>Andy tugs her labrys from the torso of a gangly, mottled alien and spins, already searching for her next target. A flash of silver and red catches the corner of her eye, and she throws back her head and laughs.</p><p>Even the fucking Winter Soldier has joined the fight for Earth, and Andy spares a moment to hope that Nicky, wherever he’s ended up in this writhing chaos, doesn’t spot him.</p><p>That moment is all it takes for one of the terrible, unfamiliar beasts to slam into Andy’s back. She stumbles, pitching forward, and a hot sear of pain erupts along her spine—</p><hr/><p>Oxygen burns in Andy’s lungs as she sucks in new air, and years-centuries-millennia of habit forces her hand out, grasping for the handle of her labrys. No time to question this as she shoves herself to her feet, spins to take down another enemy, heeds the call for protection. She drags herself into formation as an object is couriered among them by another costumed menace masquerading as a superhero.</p><p>She finds herself protecting the rear, taking blows meant for a woman in Wakandan armor, for another in green leather. Then two women in blue armor, one anachronistically medieval and one sheathed in modern tech, deflect shots meant for her, and Andy resists the urge to howl in exhilaration that it wasn’t <em>necessary</em>, because she was <em>whole</em> again—</p><hr/><p>A falling spark destroys the alien ships looming above the battlefield, cutting off the hail of missiles. A short time afterward, Andy swings the labrys toward yet another enemy. The blade meets no resistance as it slices through a cloud of dust that quickly dissipates into the air.</p><p>And just like that, it’s over. Nile finds her first, slipping from the midst of a clutch of Wakandan soldiers. Andy grips the back of Nile’s neck while the other woman’s stream of delighted words washes through her, then tugs her close in an embrace that startles Nile into silence. Nile still clutches her knives, but she wraps her arms around Andy in a return hug, and then both women are laughing and then crying, and when they break apart to meet each other’s eyes, they are laughing again.</p><p>“I have no idea what we just did,” Nile said. “But we <em>won</em>.”</p><p>Another familiar voice calls across the field. “Boss!” Joe and Nicky jog up to them, and then the embrace contains four.</p><p>It is almost enough, Andy thinks, to have her life back and be wrapped up in the three people she loves best, except the three should be <em>five</em>. Should be <em>six</em>, but Lykon is as much dust as the defeated enemy—</p><p>She pulls back enough to take Joe’s face in her hands. “We missed something, didn’t we?” she asks and tries not to feel guilty at the pain that twists his expression during what should be a moment of celebration.</p><p>Nicky asks what Andy could not bring herself to: “How long, <em>hayati</em>?”</p><p>“Five years.” The words rip from Joe’s throat like glass, and he almost falls except they hold him up, tuck him close, as he sobs into Nicky’s neck.</p><p>They are only a single island in a sea of elation and sorrow, as the high of victory clashes with the knowledge that not every combatant on the side of Earth has escaped unscathed. And if her family thinks it a miracle that Andy survived, then she will wait until they set Joe to rights before springing yet another miracle on them.</p><p>Joe pulls his face from Nicky in mid-sentence. “—in Paris. He’s back, too. We’ll find him first.”</p><p>“Of course,” Andy says, because what is the point of an exile when the world has been so altered? “We’ll go get Booker.”</p><p>And Joe’s words might have knocked her back if Nicky’s arm wasn’t curled around her waist, if Nile didn’t grip her wrist.</p><p>“And then, Quynh,” he says. “Because everyone is back, and Andy, <em>now I know where she is</em>.”</p><p>It seems the miracles have not ceased after all.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>1. It makes total sense to me that Andy and Quynh knew the Ancient One. Sadly, it also makes complete sense to me that the Ancient One would have refused to help Andy rescue Quynh from the ocean if she sensed that the need for future events to come about as they would outweighed Andy and Quynh’s happiness (and sanity).</p><p>2. Yes, Joe was the only one to survive the Snap. That story was initially supposed to be part 5 of this fic, but I realized I had too much to say. I promise that I’m working on the sequel/missing time now. (It might be a while, because it will be brutal to write and technically I’m supposed to be working on a novel, but the only way to get it out of my head is to inflict it on the rest of you.)</p><p>3. Poor Nile. What an introduction to magic.</p><p>4. Personal headcanon: When Bruce snapped his fingers, he wished for everyone to come back the way they should be. “Should be” is unspecific enough that the infinity stones kind of left it up to the subconscious determination of the returning person. Andy’s brief decades of mortality, before and now, are nothing compared to her mental worldview as an immortal. So, this fix-it makes perfect sense to me in that context, and I hope it works for other readers, too.</p><p>“Law of Averages” is coming soon!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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